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Using Frontend


Frontend of ITO is a compuational environment that enables interactive use for large-scale computations that the Login Nodes of ITO cannot perform. This environment is managed by Fujitsu UNCAI, a cloud management system. Users can make reservation of Frontend nodes with specific type of hosts and duration of time, via the Frontend Portal:

Frontend Reservation System

1. Overview of Frontend

Hardware

Frontend consists of the following two systems:

  • Normal Frontend
    • CPU: Intel Xeon Skylake-SP (2.3GHz, 18core)x 2CPU / node
    • Memory: 384GiB / node
    • GPU: NVIDIA Quadro P4000
  • Large Frontend
    • CPU: Intel Xeon Broadwell-EP (2.2GHz, 18core)x 16CPU / node
    • Memory: 12TiB / node
    • GPU: NVIDIA Quadro M4000

Host Types

Following three host types are available:

  • Virtual Host
    • Runs one or more virtual OSs per physical node, and use each of them as hosts.
    • Currently, CentOS is available as the OS.
    • GPU is not available with this type.
    • Home directories of other users are not mounted in the OS.
    • Since the home directory of the user is mounted via NFS, the speed of file I/O is not high.
  • Bare-metal Host
    • Runs one OS per node, and use it as a host.
    • Currently RedHat Linux is available as the OS.
    • GPU on the frontend node is available with this type.
    • Home directories of other users are also mounted in the OS.
    • Since the home directory of the user is directly mounted, the speed of file I/O can be high.
  • ANSYS Host
    • Runs one OS, which is prepared to provide ANSYS applications, and use it as a host.
    • Basically, available facility with this type is same as that with Bare-metal Host on Normal Frontend.

Templates

A template is a set of choises of the host type, the number of CPUs and the OS to researve a host. Currently, the following templates are available as candidates:

Template Node Type Num Cores (RAM) OS
VSSl Normal Virtual 4 ( 40GiB) CentOS 7
VSl Normal Virtual 9 ( 90GiB) CentOS 7
VMl Normal Virtual 18 ( 180GiB) CentOS 7
VLl Normal Virtual 36 ( 360GiB) CentOS 7
BLGl Normal Bare-metal 36 ( 384GiB) RedHat Enterprise Linux 7
VXSl Large Virtual 29 ( 960GiB) CentOS 7
VXMl Large Virtual 116 (3840GiB) CentOS 7
BXLGl Large Bare-metal 352 ( 12TiB) RedHat Enterprise Linux 7
BLANSI Normal Bare-metal 36 ( 960GiB) RedHat Enterprise Linux 7

2. Usage

2.1 Reservation

Follow the following steps to reserve resources of frontend:

Step 1. Login to the Frontend Reservation System

Access to the following URL, and login with your ID and password of the Portal Site of ITO:
Frontend Reservation System

Step 2. Check Availability

Click the tab of "Reservation Table" and choose "Daily". Numbers in a table show the available number of hosts of the template in that duration.
  • Adjust range of the duration by direction icons on both sides.
  • Choose the host type by clicking the triangle on the right of displayed "Host Type"
  • Numbers in each time slot shows temporal number of available units of the host. They do not guarantee that you can make reservations of the template up to this number.

Step 3. Check Your "Remaining Amount of Resource for Reservation"

Click "Usage Status" to see the current amount of resource up to which you can make reservations.
  • "Amount of Resource for Reservation" represents the product of the number of cores and the length of duration of reservations.
  • "Maximum Amount of Resource for Reservation" of a group is the initial value of the "Remaining Amount of Resource for Reservation". This value is set as in the submission for accounts of ITO.
  • When a user of a group makes a reservation, the "Amount of Resource" for the reservation is subtracted from the "Remaining Amount of Resource for Reservation".
  • At each end of day of Japan Standard Time, the "Amount of Resource" for reservations completed in the day is added back to the "Remaining Amount of Resource for Reservation" of the group.

Step 4. Make Reservations

Click "Reservation Table" tab on the left, and click "Daily" to see the table of availability of templates, or, click "Search Resource" to see avaiability of specific amount of resources in specific duration.


  • In "Daily" mode, click the column of the starting time of the template you want to make reservation. This opens the reservation creation window. Due to the internal status of the reservation system, and concurrent transactions of reservations, actual number of available hosts of the template can be smaller than the number shown in the table.
  • In "Search Resource" mode, specify the duration, template and amount of resources of the reservation. This mode shows exact amount of units available.
  • In either mode, concurrent transactions by other users may cause decrease of the available resource before completing reservation.
  • Duration of each reservation need to be more than 240 minutes, and less than 10080 minutes. If the message about minimal amount of reseravation appears, change the end time of the reservation to later time..
  • The time at which the hosts becomes available can be delayed, due to the time required for the reservation manager consumes to prepare hosts for the reservation.
  • "List of Reservations" shows the approved reservations.
  • After making a reservation, a mail that confirms the approval of the reservation should be delivered to the mail address. If that mail does not arrive, check correctness of the mail address of the reservation by clicking that entry. If the mail address is correct, and still the confirmation message does not arrive, please send a mail to the customer support.
  • Please cancel reservations that have become unnecessary.

2.2 Access to the hosts

After arrival of the notfication that the hosts have become available, you can login to the host via the login node, ito.cc.kyushu-u.ac.jp .

  • For each reservation, mails arrive at: (1) 10 min before start time, and (2) the time the hosts become available. Mail (2) may arrive earlier than (1) according to the condition of the system.
  • IP addresses of those hosts are written in the mail (2). These addresses also can be seen by clicking the request in the reservation page.
  • Since the addresses of Frontend are private, those hosts must be login via the login node of ITO, ito.cc.kyushu-u.ac.jp .
  • Refer to the following page for the information about using "SSH Agent Forwarding" and "X11 Forwarding" in the access of the hosts: Login to the Host of Frontend

2.3 Manipulation on Frontend hosts

Manipulation of Frontend hosts is similar to that of the login node.

  • Initial current directory after login is your home directory of ITO.
  • On the host of frontend, you can perform any Linux commands, compile programs, and submit jobs to subsystem A/B.
  • Execute command module avail to check available software.
  • Opening new X11 window may take time, depending on the condition of the network.

2.4 End of usage

Reserved hosts halt at the end time of the reservation.

  • If you finished your work before the end time, please cansel your reservation.
  • Your modification to the files and directories in your home directory will remain after the end of reservation. On the other hand, files in /tmp directory will be deleted.

3. Note

  • When many reservation are made with the same start time, preparation of hosts take longer, and may cause delay of the time the hosts become available. Even in such cases, the end times of those reservations are not automatically modified. If there are sufficient resources after the end time, you may be able to modify the end time of your reservation by yourself.
  • When failure happens on one or more nodes of Frontend, the manager may prepare only a part of hosts required for a reservation. If you are OK with that number of hosts, please continue using them. If the number of hosts is not sufficient, please cansel the reservation, and make a new reservation.